ETHNIC GROUPS AND DISCRIMINATION2Ethnic Groups and DiscriminationThe ethnic group in which I am doing my research on is the Mexican American immigrants in the United States. Mexicans first immigrated to the United States between 1850 and 1880 and were used as workers during the harvest season, replacing both the Chinese and Japanese once the Chinese Exclusion Act went into effect. The Act prevented Chinese workers "from entering the country for ten years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation (Wikipedia, 2011)." Due to the Act being put into place, Mexicans immigrated to the United States, seeking to replace them as field workers in areas of the country that had previously belonged to Mexico, such as California and Texas, and are widely known, to this day, to participate in the same type of work, amongst others.The Mexican immigrants faced discrimination then, and even face some of the same prejudices now. For example, as described in our textbook, Racial and Ethnic Groups, methods of deportation nowadays can be seen as being discriminatory in that many will see a Hispanic sounding name and may assume that the individual is an illegal immigrant (Schaefer, 2006).

This is the end of the preview.
Sign up
to
access the rest of the document.